Genesis 15

Wow.  This one was packed for me.  Genesis 15, you had a lot to say.

First off, just LOOK at how this chapter begins:
Genesis 15:1  "After this, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision:  'Do not be afraid, Abram.  I am your shield, your very great reward.'"

I am CERTAIN that I have probably read this chapter at some point in my life, but I never remember reading that verse.  The words of it struck me to my core.  God is our shield, and not only that but he is our very great reward.  That great reward part is the part that got to me.  I think that so often I see God as my helper, as my rock, as my redeemer, as holy and wonderful.  He really is all of those things, but to see him as my great reward?  That is amazing!  HE IS A REWARD!  He is a reward for walking a life lived with him!  I mean think about it!  We get to have daily communion with our amazing Lord!  When we give our lives over to him he promises to be there with us, to walk with us, to guide us.  What is a better reward than that.  I just love that phrasing so much.  It made me feel almost...I don't know, giddy?  Is that the right word?  Right now I am just GIDDY!  I am smiling and rejoicing and thinking about that...God is my reward.  Amazing.  Amazing that he loves me that much and that he wants to be with me...he wants to be my reward.

The other part of this chapter that just about made me cry comes a bit later on.

Genesis 15:4-6  "Then the word of the Lord came to him:  'This man will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir.' He took him outside and said, 'Look up at the heavens and count the stars-if indeed you can count them.' Then he said to him, 'So shall your offspring be.'  Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness."
Um, yeah.  This one just makes me want to cry.  If you follow my other blog, you know that our journey to having children was not always an easy one.  My boys, wow...I want to just smother them in love all of the time.  I know what an incredible gift they are.  With each pregnancy I took not a moment for granted and often I just look at their precious faces and cannot believe how blessed I am.  I don't take having children for granted.  I know that journey is a long, hard one for some people.  It was even for us.  When I think of Abram crying out to God in this area I can feel his pain.  When you have tried to have a baby and for some reason or another it is not working, that anguish can be difficult to bear.  Abram was just bringing this before his Lord, sharing his heartache with him.  I have been in that same spot.  Then, there is God, making him this BEAUTIFUL promise!  He uses something so gorgeous as the night sky to say to Abram, I hear you, I feel your anguish, I understand.  Your faithfulness will grant you descendants that number greater than the stars in the sky.  Wow. It just makes me want to smile on Abram's behalf.  He must have felt like jumping up and down and dancing after God told him this...I know I would have!

I don't know that God always answers in this way, but we have seen these sorts of answers in our own lives.  Sometimes I think that God wants us to just cry out to him, to share those sorrows with him...he is just waiting for us to say, "Look God, my heart is hurting!"  It doesn't mean that he is always going to answer that cry with a joyful circumstance...after our first miscarriage our cries were answered with another miscarriage, but he is there.  He is with us.  It goes back to that great reward thing...he is there.